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For many Orthodox singles, the road to marriage is like Snake Hill Road in Staten Island — a twisting-turning street that forces drivers to speed up, slow down, then make a few sharp turns until finally clearing the divider and proceeding (hopefully) with smooth sailing. But the “shidduch road” is not only a jerky ride at times; it’s also fraught with an endless array of rules — bewildering to even the most seasoned shidduch dater, since there’s no agreed-upon rulebook.
Until now.

Jacob Strumwasser, 24
Young hedge funder who grants micro-loans to Jewish Argentineans
For Jacob Strumwasser, it all began with a Taglit-Birthright Israel trip when he was studying at the University of Michigan. The trip helped him connect with his Jewish past and inspired him to take an active role in building the Jewish future in Argentina.

Thousands of New York Jews had a taste of the Israel historical experience last night at Radio City Music Hall, from confrontation (they first had to pass loud protesters across the street from the theater, many of them young Jews, proclaiming "Free Palestine," and calling Israel a murderous state) to remembrance (the Israel at 60 program began with prayers for the state's fallen soldiers and terror victims, and a bittersweet song by Amit Farkash, the sister of a young Israeli pilot killed in the 2006 Lebanon War).

Sergio Della Pergola is one of the world’s leading demographers and a specialist in world Jewry. A former chairman and professor of population studies at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, he now holds the Shlomo Argov Chair in Israel-Diaspora Relations at the university.
Della Pergola, 57, is also a senior fellow at the Jewish People Policy Planning Institute, an independent think tank in Jerusalem. He has published numerous books and hundreds of papers on such things as Jewish identification and population projections in the diaspora and Israel.

I was at another gathering of intelligent Jews committed to Jewish life, identity and spirituality, all of them networking and talking about the issues that brought us together, when I heard a familiar sentence. “I’d lived on the Upper West Side for nearly 20 years before I found the perfect one.”

I recently came back from a West Coast tour of sorts, which included participation in an L.A.-based conference for Jewish leaders in their 20s and 30s. The Professional Leaders Project (PLP) called participants “talent,” in perhaps an intentional evocation of “the industry.” But our talents were celebrated and cultivated in a very un-Hollywood-like way: through intensive peer leadership, networking and professional mentoring. No casting couch required.